omething of theirs, either some quality
or some property--the blood of a soldier, it might be, or a jewelled hat,
or a hundred thousand crowns from a king, or a portion out of a starving
sentinel's three farthings; or (when he was young) a kiss from a woman,
and the gold chain off her neck, taking all he could from woman or man,
and having, as I have said, this of the godlike in him, that he could see
a hero perish or a sparrow fall, with the same amount of sympathy for
either. Not that he had no tears; he could always order up this reserve at
the proper moment to battle; he could draw upon tears or smiles alike, and
whenever need was for using this cheap coin. He would cringe to a
shoeblack, as he would flatter a minister or a monarch; be haughty, be
humble, threaten, repent, weep, grasp your hand, or stab you whenever he
saw occasion)--But yet those of the army, who knew him best and had
suffered most from him, admired him most of all: and as he rode along the
lines to battle or galloped up in the nick of time to a battalion reeling
from before the enemy's charge or shot, the fainting men and officers got
new courage as they saw the splendid calm of his face, and felt that his
will made them irresistible.

After the great victory of Blenheim the enthusiasm of the army for the
duke, even of his bitterest personal enemies in it, amounted to a sort of
rage--nay, the very officers who cursed him in their hearts, were among the
most frantic to cheer him. Who could refuse his meed of admiration to such
a victory and such a victor? Not he who writes: a man may profess to be
ever so much a philosopher; but he who fought on that day must feel a
thrill of pride as he recalls it.

The French right was posted near to the village of Blenheim, on the
Danube, where the Marshal Tallard's quarters were; their line extending
through, it may be a league and a half, before Lutzingen and up to a woody
hill, round the base of which, and acting against the Prince of Savoy,
were forty of his squadrons. Here was a village that the Frenchmen had
burned, the wood being, in fact, a better shelter and easier of guard than
any village.

Before these two villages and the French lines ran a little stream, not
more than two foot broad, through a marsh (that was mostly dried up from
the heats of the weather), and this stream was the only separation between
the two armies--ours coming up and ranging themselves in line of battle
before the French, at